The World Bank’s 1991 ‘World Development Media Focus Report’ has made a fascinating observation that scientific and technological progress and enhanced productivity in any nation are closely linked to investment in human capital and the economic environment quality. However, scientific and technical capabilities are unevenly distributed globally and are connected with the education system in a nation. The 21st century has seen massive changes in higher education systems in terms of their complexity andr utility for converting education into an effective tool for social and economic changes. An exciting relationship is emerging among education, knowledge, and knowledge conversion into suitable entities from the trade point of view, wealth, and economy.
Internationalization of education includes the policies and practices undertaken by academic systems and institutions and even individuals to cope with the global educational environment. Internationalization motivations have commercial advantages, knowledge,e and language acquisition, and enhancing the curriculum with international content, among others. Specific initiatives such as branch campuses, cross-border collaborative arrangements, programs for international students, establishing English-medium programs and degrees, and others have been implemented as part of internationalization. Efforts to monitor global initiatives and ensure quality are integral to the international higher education environment.
The higher education system across the world has witnessed two more interesting revolutions. The first is connected with the advent and use of computers in teaching and learning,g and research, and the second is linked with the communication revolution. Today, education transcends geographical boundaries. Besides, the structure and context of academic work also have undergone tremendous change. Student diversity and the administrative and pedagogical demands of new curricula delivery models characterize the academic’s everyday working environment. The accomplishment of any educational change is linked with teachers’ readiness to implement new methods and innovative practices. The present paper attempts to understand the role of teachers in the internationalization of higher education in India. The present paper focuses on the challenges and opportunities for faculty in the context of the internationalization of higher education and their inclination to adopt the change.
Review of literature:
A growing number of papers and studies document how the university experience of students and academic and administrative staff has been radically transformed [Chandler & Clark 2001, Deem 2001]. Student diversity and the administrative and pedagogical demands of new curricula delivery models characterize the academic’s everyday working environment. Identities as academics are constantly challenged as the academic staff takes on multiple and often conflicting roles as consultants, researchers, teachers, counselors, and international marketers. Support for academics involved in international activities is scarce, and the central strategic control of resources with its demands for flexibility compromises the quality of academic life.
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A qualitative study examines the role of international experience in female educators’ transformative learning related to professional development in a higher education context. It also investigates how the learning productions of these experiences were transferred to the participant’s’ home country. Nine American female faculty and administrators who worked at universities in Arab countries in the Gulf region participated in this study. The results suggest that the female educators’ transformative learning was reflected in three themes: changes in personal and professional attitudes, experiencing a new classroom environment that included different students’ learning styles and unfamiliar classroom behavior, and broadening of participants’ global perspectives. Another study sought to assess how and why some higher education institutions have responded to aspects of globalization, particularly how organizational culture influences universities’ responses to globalization. Using a predominantly qualitative, mixed-methods approach, empirical research was used to explore globalization’s impact at four Canadian universities. Multiple case-study methods were used to achieve a depth of understanding to establish the universities’ culture, institutional strategies, and practices in response to globalization.
The context of the study Political & educational context
Everyone recognizes that India has a serious higher education problem. Although India’s higher education system, with more than 13 million students, is the world’s third-largest, it only educates around 12 percent of the age group, well under China’s 27 percent and a half or more in middle-income countries. Thus, providing access to India’s expanding young population and rapidly growing middle class is a challenge. India also faces a serious quality problem – given that only a tiny proportion of the higher education sector can meet international standards. The justly famous Indian Institutes of Technology and the Institutes of Management, a few specialized schools such as the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research constitute a tiny elite, as do one or two private institutions such as the Birla Institute of Technology and Science, and perhaps 100 top-rated undergraduate colleges. By international standards, almost all of India’s 480 public universities and more than 25,000 undergraduate colleges are mediocre at best. India has complex legal arrangements for reserving places in higher education for members of various disadvantaged population groups. Setting aside up to half of the seats for such groups puts further stress on the system.
Capacity problem
India faces severe capacity problems in its educational system partly because of underinvestment over many decades. Over a third of Indians remain illiterate after over a half-century of independence. A new law that makes primary education free and compulsory, while admirable, occurs in the context of scarcity of trained teachers, inadequate budgets, and shoddy supervision. The University Grants Commission and the All-India Council for Technical Education, responsible for supervising the universities and the technical institutions, are being replaced with a new combined entity. But no one knows how the new organization will work or who will staff it. India’s higher education accrediting and quality assurance organization, the National Assessment and Accreditation Council, which was well-known for its slow movement, is being shaken. But, again, it is unclear how it might be changed. Current plans include establishing new national “world-class” universities in each of India’s States, opening new IITs, and other initiatives. The fact is that academic salaries do not compare favorably with remuneration offered by India’s growing private sector and are uncompetitive by international standards. Many of India’s top academics teach in the United States, Britain, and elsewhere. Even Ethiopia and Eritrea recruit Indian academics.
Welcoming foreign universities:
It is recently announced that India’s government is preparing to permitg foreign universities to enter the Indian market. The foreigners are expected to provide the much-needed capacity and new ideas on higher education management, curriculum, teaching methods, and research. It is hoped that they will bring investment. Top-class foreign universities are anticipated to add prestige to India’s postsecondary system. These assumptions are,e at the very least,t questionable. While foreign transplants worldwide have provided some additional access, they have not dramatically increased student numbers. Almost all branch campuses are small and limited in scope and field.
In the Persian Gulf, Vietnam, and Malaysia, where foreign branch campuses have been active, they have only modestly affected student access. Branch campuses are typically fairly small and almost always specialized in inexpensive fields to offer and have a ready clientele such as business studies, technology, and hospitality management. Few branch campuses bring much in the way of academic innovation. Typically, they use tried and true management, curriculum, and teaching methods. The branches frequently have little autonomy from their home university and are, thus, tightly controlled abroad.
Foreign providers will bring some investment to the higher education sector, particularly since the new law requires a minimum $11 million entry fee. Still, the total amount brought into India is unlikely to be very large. Global experience shows that most higher education institutions entering a foreign market are not prestigious universities but low-end institutions seeking market access and income. Top universities may establish collaborative arrangements with Indian peer institutions or study/research centers in India but are unlikely to build full-fledged branch campuses independently. There may be a few exceptions, such as the Georgia Institute of Technology considering a major investment in Hyderabad.
Indian education is a joint responsibility of the Central and State governments – and many States have differing approaches to higher education generally and to foreign involvement in particular. Some, such as Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, have been quite interested. The Other States, such as West Bengal, with its communist government, may be more skeptical. And a few, such as Chhattisgarh, have been known to sell university status access to the highest bidders.
The significance of the study:
The higher education system’s volatile situation vis-à-vis the internationalization of higher education creates many opportunities and challenges for higher education teachers. Pressures for change in the field of teacher education are escalating significantly as part of systemic education reform initiatives in a broad spectrum of economically developed and developing nations. Considering these pressures, it is surprising that relatively little theoretical or empirical analysis of learning and change processes within teacher education programs has been undertaken. The present study considers this situation and endeavors to understand the challenges faced or anticipated by the teaching faculty in internalizing education.
Aims of the study:
The present study is aimed to understand and analyze the position of college teachers in general and those of working undergraduate colleges.
Data collection Locale of the study:
Data for the present study is collected from college teachers in Hyderabad. Colleges in Hyderabad are generally affiliated with Osmania University. In addition to various colleges, the city is home to three central universities, two deemed universities, and six state universities. Osmania University, established in 1917, is the seventh-oldest university in India and the third-oldest in South India. Indian School of Business, an international business school ranked number 12 in global MBA rankings by the Financial Times of London in 2010, is also located in Hyderabad.
Colleges in Hyderabad offer graduation and post-graduation, and post-graduation programs in science, arts, commerce, law & medicine. College of Engineering – Osmania University, Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University, Indian Institute of Technology, etc., are famous engineering colleges in Hyderabad. In addition to engineering colleges, various institutes known as polytechnics offer a three-year course in engineering. Gandhi Medical College and Osmania Medical College are the medical education centers in Hyderabad. Colleges and universities in Hyderabad are run by either a state government, central government, or private individuals or agencies. Hyderabad Central University, Nalsar, NIPER, Potti Sreeramulu Telugu University, Maulana Azad National Urdu University, English and Foreign Languages University, Acharya N.G. Ranga Agricultural University is one of the other universities located in Hyderabad.
Universe and sample:
146-degree degrees offer undergraduate courses [B.Sc., B.Com, and B.A] in Hyderabad. Teachers working in these colleges are considered the universe for the present study. Most of these colleges have academic consultants whose tenure is limited to one term or one academic year. Educational consultants are not eligible for faculty development programs of the University Grants Commission. Various programs meant for faculty development are available for aided college teachers. Hence, the present study has selected aided college teachers working in Hyderabad as a subcategory of the universe. At the outset, a focused group interview is conducted to collect information about the willingness to train oneself for the internationalization of higher education. Out of 150 lecturers who participated in this focused group interview, fifty were selected as samples for the present study using a random sampling method.
Data for the present study is collected using an in-depth interview method with the help of a schedule. Information about the socio-economic characteristics of the respondents, educational achievements, awareness of national and global career structures, research culture, working conditions, and information on the strategies the college adopted to equip for internationalization is collected. Data collection is done during the months of march-may 2010. The qualitative information on awareness and availability of national and global career structures, strategies for integrating the international dimension, professional development, needs for postdoctoral research culture, refresher courses, and working conditions were collected using the case study method in-depth interviews.
National and global career structures:
Kalisch and Enders [2005, pp.131-32] note that three overlapping sets of institutions shape faculty work: 1] the generic science system and systems in each discipline, which to a varying extent are cross-national, emphasize the autonomy and mobility of researchers, and foster competition based on scholarly merit and prestige; 2] rules about work, competition,n, and careers, where academic work is embedded in national policy and cultural settings; and 3] the organizational operations of universities, which both reflect federal and local traditions and are touched by common trends such as massification, growing expectations about social relevance and the nationally-parallel global transformations. A fourth element in the mix that might be increasingly important is internationalization and globalization in academic careers.
The present study finds that the teaching faculty’s available opportunities are based on all these four elements. Most respondents experienced the interplay of all these elements in their work lives. More than fifty percent of the respondents felt that education’s massification is burdensome and an obstacle to faculty improvement. Faculty mobility has long been a positive professional norm though varying by nation and field [El-Khawas, 2002, pp.242-43] and varying somewhat in motive. Afewf researchers have expertise and reputations that confer superior opportunities in many countries. However, most teaching faculties have primarily national careers and use cross-border experience to advance their position at home, traveling mostly at the doctoral and postdoctoral stages and for short visits. A third group consists of faculty with lesser opportunities at home than abroad due to remuneration or work conditions, the denial of national careers due to social or cultural closure, or an economic freeze on hiring. This group has less transformative potential than elite researchers.
Excellence in education will require improvement in infrastructure, well-crafted courses, e-learning materials, access to laboratories, computational facilities, and above all, well-trained and highly motivated teachers. When asked about the availability of resources and research opportunities, 78 percent of the respondents opined that there are many bottlenecks. In most colleges, e-learning and internet facilities are not available. Even their college libraries will mostly have books useful for undergraduate students rather than useful for further research by the teaching faculty. Most respondents felt they were not exposed to the pedagogical methods acceptable internationally. Hence, their awareness of of the teaching methods is not much. Simultaneously, they were not trained in the teaching-learning process relevant to the internationalized educational system while doing their post-graduation or pre-doctoral/doctoral level.
Strategies for integrating the internal dimension:
There are many ways to describe the initiatives undertaken to internationalize an institution. They are often called activities, components, procedures, or strategies. In the process-oriented approach to internationalization, an emphasis is placed on enhancing and sustaining the international dimensions of research. Most of the colleges,s in general, autonomous colleges, and colleges with the potential for excellence follow the process-oriented approach. Yet, the faculty is not ready to equip themselves for this internationalization. The reasons mentioned by the respondents include more work, fear of losing the job, lengthy working hours, high aided-unaided teaching faculty ratio, low job satisfaction levels, and lack of facilities at the institutional level.
Professional Development Needs
As they are called in many countries, faculty members, or academic staff, constitute a critical ingredient influencing the quality and effectiveness of higher education institutions. Universities in the developing world cannot respond to external changes and pressures without capable, committed, and knowledgeable faculty members. However, the challenge for many faculty members is that they are being asked to fulfill tasks and assume roles for which they are not adequately prepared. Besides, there are not many training centers to equip them well. Academic staff colleges provide refresher and orientation courses, but these courses are attended by those whose promotions are linked with attending refresher courses.
Postdoctoral research culture
Unlike the advanced countries, where a large pool of postdoctoral research fellows carries out the bulk of the high-quality research, India has a near-total absence of a postdoctoral culturaSeventy-nine9 percent of the respondents expressed their willingness to pursue postdoctoral research. Still, it said they could not do so due to financial problems. Although the number of women at post-graduate and doctoral levels in various universities is high, few make sufficient career advances for various social reasons. Women teachers and teachers who studied in vernacular felt that though they are interested, their family responsibilities and language and communication problems are major challenges for them.
Conclusion:
Higher education in India has entered a new phase with foreign universities’ invasion and increasing aspirations of Indian students. This has created a need to revive the pedagogical methods. But the question remains whether the teaching faculty is ready to accept these changes.? In the present study, the teachers are prepared to take on the challenges of global teaching. The hour’s need is to equip Indian teachers than permit foreign universities to establish their campuses in India. This requires an appropriate teacher education that can address the issue of organizational learning.
Charles A. Peck, Chrysan Gallucci, Tine Sloan, and Ann Lippincott [2009] illustrated some ways contemporary sociocultural learning theory might be used as a lens for addressing organizational learning issues in teacher education. Using a theoretical framework developed by Harré [1984], they showed how individual and collective learning processes led to changes in a teacher education program. Important innovations in program practice were generally found to have their sources in individual faculty’s creative work. However, program-level changes required negotiating new ideas and techniques within small faculty groups and the program’s larger collective. The present study would like to conclude that the Harré model, and the sociocultural learning theories from which it is derived, may offer a useful theoretical framework for interpreting complex social processes underlying organizational renewal, innovation, and change.
